Okay, Let's Talk About The Onceler

Okay, let's talk about the Onceler

I'm not so attached to him as i was on the beginning of june, the first time a saw him was on the trailers back in 2012 but i never watched the movie until years later, i remember finding him weird and kinda creepy(both the young version and the older version of him), sometimes I had afraid of that man, specially when the scenes shots showed him from bottom to up, making him looking like a tall creepy person for me.

I came so late into this fandom that i didn't created a strong love/admiration connection with him, specially because of everything people sayed about his 2012 version and the fandom, and i familiarized with 1972 Onceler first, when i rewatched the 2012 movie, i felt indifferent towards him, although sometimes i felt bad and at the same time despised him. I will talk what were mine interpretations about the Onceler.

I admit, i kinda of liked him(as a familiar character), he still isn't a great character but he works very well in the movie, even though he's a twenty-something idiot, he is a very competent person.

We appreciate him for the wrong reasons. He may have charisma, it's multifaceted, knows how to deal with people (specially when he is old, he became a very mature person) and there's a lot of narrative possibilities to work with the Onceler, but the most important, he still committed crimes against nature("father nature" if you count The Lorax as the embodiment), against his well being, against his will and indirectly against another humans, he sinned against the world creation, regardless of his family pressure.

It's hard to get over the mental abuse of many years, especially if it's from family, he still kinda of had the choice to get over his family abuse and embrace the new world(trufulla valley) he discovered, a place that had the freedom to live a health life and have better companies, but that man still chosen to deny that world against his well being and the well being of others, that's not justifiable by any way, even if the cause it's that he can't break free from the toxic utilitarian mindset him was pushed his whole life. That man still denys another life, another choice just to affirm his power and pride, deluded with acceptance, and later on with greed.

This mister may feel guilt and grief for what happens with nature, he may be a good person but he felt so helpless to stop destruction that he started to embrace pride and greed, he embraced the meaningless and accepted his destruction for finalities, this mister is supposed to remind us that even if you care or cared about things, you still lose your head and starts to embrace your bad deeds and destruction, as the end looks to justify the means, greed starts to grow until consume you totally. That is better represented on the song Biggering (unfortunately a song which got cut).

The Onceler really speaks for the men(humans), he speaks for the human needs and wants.

Of course his design kinda worked at his favor(just kinda), even when his old, the fact that the he is tall and the movie used this visual element to tell the story by representing how powerful he can be and how he imagines himself as cool(this is very clear on "How bad can I be"), his simple and generic visual it's obviously because of lazy ideas but here it worked because he represents the ordinary and can be anyone, although i'm not saying the Onceler has a good design, not at all, what happens is that his visual and design works in a very ironic way.

He is an adult man that has the power to destroy and transform anything, what doesn't help is that his design and style is very teen or childish, it seems that he keeps re-labeling his childishly clothes and he isn't very conscious about his actions, I say that he is a man almost fully because he takes the role of every human when turns into an adult, get a new home, search for resources and a job that he could destroy and transform the resources into new things, so much that his final form is The Industrial Man, the man that takes as many resources as possible and massively transform these into human goods and manufactures, that's the final stage of a human, that's the pinnacle of humanity power, that's why he is so powerful.

If people want to fill the vacuum of deep relationships with the Onceler without fall into shipping, then we need to appreciate different relationships dynamics, the friendnemies dynamic with The Lorax that is complicated, and also the potential father-son relationship that The Onceler had with Ted. Sometimes i wish we had more fanarts or fancomics which The Onceler interact in a way where he acts like a wise man with Ted. While, with The Lorax, well, i feel bad that the Lorax saw his friend turn into greedy, it's sad that the Onceler always harms his friends who's were the only ones that cared about him, the Lorax not only cares about the nature but also with the own Onceler, the woods was not only home to the animals and the Lorax, it was a home to the Onceler in the short time he stayed.

Nowadays i also have more focus on other characters, but the Onceler is so important as a character that we can't ignore him, he made many impacts on many lives even without intention.